Distribution of female-headed households in South Africa 2019, by province

As of 2019, 41.8 percent of households in South Africa were female-headed, which amounted to a total of approximately 7.2 million. Provinces with larger portions of rural areas, such as Eastern Cape (50 percent), Limpopo (48.8 percent) and KwaZulu-Natal (47.9 percent), were more likely to share large numbers of female-headed households, whereas rather urbanized provinces, such as Gauteng (33.9 percent), which includes Johannesburg, and Western Cape (37.6 percent), which includes Cape Town, were less likely to have female-headed households in comparison.